Category Archives: photo

Primer 747-8F Almost Makes a First Flight

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I love jets that aren’t painted.  I know Boeing uses a film to protect the bare metal and it isn’t primer but it certainly looks like it.  A 747-8F was scheduled for a first flight at Paine Field prior to heading to Portland for painting.  It taxied out and lined up.  I thought I was going to get a first flight for this jet.  It did a high speed taxi run and aborted takeoff as is the norm but something wasn’t right.  They taxied back to the ramp and shut down.  They weren’t flying on this day.  I was a bit annoyed!

Japanese Garden at Butchart

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Our visit to Butchart Gardens was focused on the lights but we got their before the sun went down and explored the Japanese garden.  It was closed for the lights event so this was the only time to check it out.  The gardens as a whole were quite quiet so it was peaceful wandering around the plants, across the bridges and around the water features.

There was a device for scaring wild boar.  It was a water clock which would gradually fill with running water at which point it would overbalance, tip out the water and then fall back making a noise designed to startle any passing wild boar.  I was particularly interested in some branches for one of the plants that were twisted into some bizarre patterns.  I couldn’t make out whether this was natural or not but, if it is, I do wonder what the purpose would be.

Renton Municipal Airport

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I have visited Renton Municipal Airport on plenty of occasions but I had not previously stopped to check out the sculpture at the entrance to the airport.  It is sited by the main gate and there is a parking area to make it easy to visit.  The formal name of the airport is Clayton Scott Field and the sculpture is of Clayton Scott himself next to a sign showing the direction and distance to multiple locations.  The top of the sculpture even includes space as one destination!  The locations are chosen and organized to provide a nice spiral pattern to the markers.  It is a nicely executed piece of artwork.

Cliff Fall and Rock Strata

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While staying in Norfolk, we took a walk along the beach at Hunstanton.  We parked up on the top of the cliffs and walked down the path to the beach.  Once down there, we were able to see the cliff rocks and they were pretty interesting.  The rocks had been laid down in strata are a gentle angle and looked really cool.  I guess they were eroding since we came upon what looked like a recent rockfall.  Of course, rocks do things in a lot slower time than us so it is entirely possible that these rocks had been lying there for ages but they did look pretty recent.

Avro York

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The Avro Lancaster is a very famous bomber from the Second World War but its transportation derivative is a lot less well known.  Outside the aviation community, it is probably totally unknown.  It is the Avro York (War of the Roses comments are welcome) and it takes the flying surfaces and power plants of the Lancaster and mates them to a larger fuselage for transporting people.  It was an important type in the latter stages of the war and immediately afterwards.  This example is in the main hangar at the IWM Duxford.

Old Encounter with an Elephant

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In the late 90s, I made a very brief trip to South Africa for work.  I had one day spare while I was there and so took a trip to Pilanesburg National Park, a wildlife reserve.  I spent a day driving around looking at various different wild animals, mostly at a great distance.  Since it was the middle of the day, lots of the interesting stuff was out of sight.  Near the end of my time there, I took a drive down a side road to a watering hole that was supposed to be popular with hippos.  I find hippos fascinating so was hoping to see some.  No such luck.

As I drove back up towards the main road and started contemplating a return to Johannesburg, I saw a bunch of cars on the main road that had stopped.  I slowed down, figuring that they had seen something off to one side so I started looking.  Sure enough, they had.  An elephant was wandering through the trees and coming straight for me.  I sat watching it approach.  It didn’t seem bothered that I was there and came straight for the car.  When I realized that it was going to come right through me, I put the car in reverse and quickly got out of the way – grabbing a close up shot as I did so.  It came on to the road and turned away from me walking towards a camper van.  The van soon came to the same conclusion that I had.  The elephant wasn’t interested in stopping or going around them so they had to reverse up the road as the elephant paced them appropriately.  Finally it turned off and I imagine they breathed a sigh of relief.

Some A400M Samples

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As I was skipping through some images, I saw a few extra shots of the A400M at RIAT.  I figured that I hadn’t seen many examples of the transport in service – just the test aircraft performing in displays.  However, I have seen both Luftwaffe and Armee de l’Air planes at times so thought I would share a few shots of them plus some test planes for good measure.

Lavenham

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We went to a bunch of villages in East Anglia that were picturesque but one was almost too much to be real.  I have been to Lavenham before – I went in the early 90s when visiting a friend who was living in the area at the time – but I have to admit I didn’t recall much about it and when we got there, I wondered how I could have forgotten.  It seems that the entire village is made up of buildings that were constructed by a film set designer.

Half timbered building abound.  They are all really old but well maintained.  Multiple colors are used to decorate the walls which I assume are probably made of some vintage materials.  Building construction in those days used to use a lot of straw mixed with “binding agents” of a less than delightful origin.  You don’t know that once they are done and I assume any more modern repairs make use of more pleasant ingredients.  The age of the buildings also shows in the way that there doesn’t appear to be a right angle in the place.  Everything is at odd angles.  It really is something special.

It is not hard to understand why tourists will visit the place.  It is just what someone from overseas would imagine an English village to be.  I certainly won’t so easily forget it this time.  Not sure how I did before!

Roll Out and Takeoff of a New Max 8

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I’ve seen a few 737s make their first flights at Renton.  This example occurred on weekend morning and it caught me out a bit.  They roll the jets across the bridge from the assembly flight line to the runway flight line.  The bridge crosses the river just south of the park.  Once across, they are ready to start up.  This takes longer than a normal start up since this is the first time the plane is going to fly.

The fast taxi with rejected takeoff is the next step.  This takes place on the runway and, in this case, was heading towards me up near the Lake Washington end of the Renton runway.  All being well with this, it is time to take off.  I had hoped that this would involve a back taxi and then departure over the lake but I was to be disappointed.  They turned at the lake and powered up for a departure to the south.  I had not anticipated this so was badly placed.  The moist morning air resulted in vapor in the inlets as they accelerated past me and then climbed off in the distance.

San Francisco Waterfront

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The waterfront at the Embarcadero is a very attractive place to wander around.  What I have rarely had a good view of, though, is the view from above.  Fortunately, a friend of ours works down there and, when we visited, he took us up to have a look at the view.  We stopped in at the end of the work day so it was still daylight.  The view of the Ferry Building and across the Bay Bridge was very nice.

We did stop in again after dinner since the night view is a great one too.  San Francisco on a sunny evening is a fun place to be with old friends.  It does have its quirks though!